Securing the Bomb 2008: Global Nuclear Terrorism Risk Still High, Despite Progress;
New Administration Must Take Immediate Steps to Reduce Dangers

The world still faces a “very real” risk that terrorists could get a nuclear bomb, and the Obama Administration must make reducing that risk a top priority of U.S. security policy and diplomacy, according to Securing the Bomb 2008, released today by the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. The new report, authored by the Belfer Center’s Matthew Bunn, was accompanied by a paper offering a specific agenda for the presidential transition and the opening weeks of the new administration.

To read the full press release: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18671/

To read the full report: http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/overview/cnwm_home.asp

The report was highlighted today in the Washington Post. To read the full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111702976.html

To read the memo to President-Elect Obama: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18673/preventing_nuclear_terrorism.html

“The problem in NATO - and the problem for President Obama going to that 60th anniversary NATO summit in April - is Europe is badly divided between East and West.”

Nicholas Burns, member of the Belfer Center’s board of directors, was interviewed on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS on November 16, 2008.

For the full transcript, go to: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0811/16/fzgps.01.html

“The information generated through technology innovation is freely available to others. As a result, the private sector inevitably under-invests in R&D. Therefore there is a pressing need for governments to support private-sector research and development of new carbon-friendly technologies.”

Robert Stavins, member of the Belfer Center’s board of directors, is one of the “Friends of the Saltire Prize’s” four inaugural members. The four members were invited by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond to lend their support to the largest ever Government innovation prize - the £10 million Saltire Prize. Those invited are distinguished individuals with a strong track record on environmental issues, particularly climate change, who will help raise awareness of the Prize.

For more, go to: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2008/09/24111537

“The single most important thing we can do right now is a very large fiscal stimulus married with a commitment, once the economy is healthy again, to put in place a multi-year program to get back to a sound fiscal position.”

Lawrence Summers, member of the Belfer Center’s board of directors, was featured in “Summers’s New View on Stimulus: Sustained, Not Temporary” on the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council blog on November 17, 2008.

For the full article, go to: http://blogs.wsj.com/ceo-council/2008/11/17/summerss-new-view-on-stimulus-sustained-not-temporary/

“President-elect Obama must deal quickly and boldly with Afghanistan. But doing so will require an early initiative to help Pakistan and India settle their differences on Kashmir. The problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable.”

Meghan O’Sullivan, lecturer at the Belfer Center, was quoted in the article “Job One,” which was published by the Washington Post on Sunday, November 9, 2008.

For the full article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602996.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR

“Institutional publicity operations are becoming more sophisticated at the same time that newsrooms are decimating the ranks of fulltime specialty science staff. Many science reporters are left scrambling to find work as freelance or public-information writers.”

Cristine Russell, a senior fellow with the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program, wrote “Science Reporting by Press Release,” which was published by Columbia Journalism Review online on November 14, 2008.

Full the full article, go to: http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/science_reporting_by_press_rel.php

“The new American administration provides an opportunity for all concerned to reconsider our collective basic approach to conflict-resolution in the region, particularly in view of Barack Obama’s stated willingness to diplomatically engage rather than just sanction and threaten Iranians and other adversaries.”

Rami Khouri, a senior fellow with the Belfer Center’s Dubai Initiative and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs and the American University of Beirut, wrote “Real Conflicts and Imaginary Ideologies,” which was released by Agence Global on November 17, 2008.

For the full oped, go to: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18669/real_conflicts_and_imaginary_ideologies.html

Rebuilding Brand America
Moneycontrol.com (India)
November 18
Quoted: Stephen Walt, Belfer Center
Topic: U.S. foreign policy

Stephen Walt was quoted in another article from Moneycontrol.com

… “The day I’m inaugurated, not only will the country look at itself differently, but the world will look at America differently,” Obama said on the campaign trail. “Leaders of others countries will know that I’ve got family members that live in small villages in Africa that are poor and I know what they’re going through.” Coming from a presidential candidate, it was a remarkable statement.

But that said, most American foreign policy observers believe the nation has enough problems on hand that will keep America away from international affairs. Says Sandeep Waslekar of the Strategic Foresight Group, a think tank that advises the Indian government on key issues: “At best, US foreign policy will be conciliatory. For the next two years, it will have to focus on the domestic economy, not international politics.”

The view is echoed by Stephen Walt at the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard: “It won’t be feasible for the US to be as active internationally as it was under the Bush and Clinton regimes. It needs to be more cautious. In fact, cautious is not quite the right word—I would say it needs to take greater care and calculation of what is vital to US interests.”

http://news.moneycontrol.com/india/news/economy/rebuilding-brand-america/19/36/366756

Depression 2009: What would it look like?
Boston.com
November 16
Quoted: Jeffrey Frankel
Topic: Potential effects of the financial crisis

OVER THE PAST few months, Americans have been hearing the word “depression” with unfamiliar and alarming regularity. The financial crisis tearing through Wall Street is routinely described as the worst since the Great Depression, and the recession into which we are sinking looks deep enough, financial commentators warn, that a few poor policy decisions could put us in a depression of our own. …

The migrations kicked off by a depression wouldn’t be in one direction, but a tangle of demographic crosscurrents: young families moving back to their hometowns to live with the grandparents when they can no longer afford to live on their own, parents moving in with their adult children when their postretirement fixed incomes can no longer support them. Some parts of the country, especially the Rust Belt, could see a wholesale depopulation as the last remnants of the American heavy-manufacturing base die out.

“There will be some cities like Detroit that in a real depression could just become ghost towns,” says Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard economist and member of the National Bureau of Economic Research committee that declares recessions. (Frankel does not, he emphasizes, think we are headed for a depression.)

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/16/depression_2009_what_would_it_look_like?mode=PF

“The proximate cause of the economic uncertainty of 2008 was financial: to be precise, a crunch in the credit markets triggered by mounting defaults on a hitherto obscure species of housing loan known euphemistically as “subprime mortgages.”

Niall Ferguson, member of the Belfer Center’s board of directors, wrote “Wall Street lays another egg,” which Vanity Fair published in their December 2008 issue.

For the full article, go to: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/12/banks200812